Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Reflections On A Visit To Pakistan : Hope Survives amid Despondency

  21 April 2011, by Kuldip Nayar

  It is easy to slot Pakistan, but difficult to comprehend how it ticks. The West tags the country with terrorism and many others consider it a failed state. For India, it is a potential enemy which is still to punish the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on 26/11, nearly three years ago.
  Yet the 16 million people want the same secure conditions which the inhabitants of other countries cherish. But they live in constant fear, the children praying for their father’s safety and wives of their (…)

• Plea for Truthful Analysis of Ongoing Events

  21 April 2011, by Randhir Singh

  The following is the text of the convocation address that Prof Randhir Singh, the renowned Marxist scholar who retired as the Professor of Political Theory, University of Delhi, some years ago, was invited to deliver at the Punjabi University in Patiala in December 2010; however, he could not deliver it in person as he met with a minor accident at his residence in the New Delhi, and it had to be read out in absentia.
  It is generous of Dr Jaspal Singh and the Punjabi University authorities (…)

• Spectrum Management — Paradigm and Perspectives

  21 April 2011, by Latika Nath

  India is a space power, with the capability to launch satellites in space. Very few nations of the world make up this elite club. Some govern-ments and companies are owner/operators of satellites, thus contributing to the rapid growth of the space industry. The commercialisation of outer space removed the mystique and magic of such activities in outer space, and this represents the developing field of economic growth. Some years ago these activities were exclusively reserved for the (…)

• Honouring Ambedkar

  21 April 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  (April 14 this year marks the 120th birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. On this occasion we are reproducing the following piece by N.C. and two articles on Dr Ambedkar to offer our sincere homage to the abiding memory of that towering personality.)
  The award of the Bharat Ratna posthumously on B.R. Ambedkar raises mixed feelings. No doubt Ambedkar was one of the stalwarts of modern India; the high-water mark of his career was that he contributed (…)

• Relevance of Dr Ambedkar’s Demand for Separate Settlement

  21 April 2011

  by A. Ramaiah
  Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” The Indian Constitution is also very much in tune with these universal ideals with its commitment to secure all citizens liberty, equality and fraternity. But according to the Brahmanic theory of caste, which is still the dominant theory, all (…)

• America Does It Again

  21 April 2011, by Humra Quraishi

  America is at it again. Yes, once again. Doing what it’s infamous for—killing of civilians, perishing of beings, bombarding those locales which are far beyond its official jurisdiction. It seems bizarre and yet in this new world order you have a pack of countries which send their fighter jets to bombard those lands which dare defy its orders. What with American President Obama chanting that he ‘can’t stand idly’ and so he did indulge in that pastime—air strikes. This time on the Libyans. And (…)

• World Economy Splutters: Dark Clouds on the Horizon

  21 April 2011, by Kobad Ghandy

  (This article was written much earlier last year by Kobad Ghandy, the Maoist leader, from Tihar Jail No. 3 (where he is lodged) for Mainstream but it reached us late. However, we are publishing it in view of the importance of its contents. He has promised to write a sequel to it. —Editor)
  On June 5, US economist Nouriel Roubini said in an interview: “The eurozone is facing a period of zero growth if not recession, and the United States is heading for financial trouble.”
  If corporate (…)

• An Engineer’s Observations on Economics

  21 April 2011, by Kunal Ghosh

  The constant talk of GDP growth and how India is one of the growth engines of the world, trumpeted day in and day out by our Ministers, media and Western experts, intrigue me. I wanted to read between the lines of growth statistics. I obtained the growth figures of the Indian economy from 1990-91 onward up to 2010-11. Up to 2005-06 the figures are from Wikipedia quoting authentic Government of India source, and the rest from the pages of a recent issue of Mainstream. (Anshuman Gupta 2011) (…)

• Tribute to Santosh Bhattacharyya

  21 April 2011, by Barun Das Gupta

  Santosh Bhattacharyya, the former Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University, who passed away in Kolkata last month, was an eminent Left intellectual, a distinguished economist and an uncompromising crusader for preserving the independence of educational institutions from intrusive political interference of the government in narrow partisan interests.
  He came in touch with the nascent Left movement in undivided Bengal as a student in the early 1940s and later became a wholetimer of the (…)

• Demographic Dividend and Health Concerns in India

  21 April 2011

  by M Benson Thomas
  A major dimension of the ongoing discourse on the population spurt in India is the significant question whether the country can attain the benefits of ‘demographic dividend’. By demo-graphic dividend we mean a rise in the rate of economic growth due to a rising share of the working age population. It is understood that the dividend occurs when a decline of birth and death within a short span of time creates an excessive shift in the age structure of the population (…)